


Not Quite Checkmate

by FireflyAlchemist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Father-Daughter Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-17 19:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflyAlchemist/pseuds/FireflyAlchemist
Summary: Basically, a reimagining of Leia's time on the Death Star, if Bail had equipped her with the knowledge to make a final move.





	1. Chapter 1

Leia stared up at the ceiling of her cell. It was made of the same hard, black material as the bench she was lying on. In fact, apart from a section of paneling on the wall behind her and the door itself, the entire cell continued uninterrupted in the same smooth sheet of metal. Seamless and unbearably cold.

That’s how she felt.

She turned to her side and gazed at the door. She knew she should feel _something_. She should feel like her arm had been sawed off. Like her insides were being ripped out. Like the only home she’d ever known had been vaporized in front of her and taken everyone she loved with it. She wanted that pain, something to hold her to reality, to remind her that there was a still a life to live, a war to win, a galaxy to free.

But, she was just empty. Cold, hard and utterly empty.

It was a loss too large to comprehend, she supposed. The true weight had yet to hit her, like when you stub a toe and for a second you’re suspended in limbo, waiting for the pain to strike. Knowing it will, but feeling nothing. Perhaps it was a survival response, like adrenaline, meant to keep her alive long enough to properly mourn later.

 _Not that it matters now_ , she thought idly, turning her gaze to the ceiling once more. Her execution order was signed, sealed, delivered. In all likelihood, she’d be dead by morning.

The thought comforted her.

She’d only be without Alderaan for a few more hours. A day at the most. There was no way out.

But that wasn’t quite true was it?

 _There’s always a move to make, Lelila_. Her father’s voice.

She was seventeen again, sitting across from him, a Dejarik board between them. _You just have to figure out what it is._

She ignored him and absently motioned for her holo Monnok to attack his Mantellian Savrip.

He sighed. _If you are intent on joining the rebellion, I won’t stop you._

Her head jerked up. For the past few months she’d been surreptitiously participating in missions—against her father’s express orders.

_But you must promise me one thing._

She nodded. It didn’t matter what he asked of her, for the chance to fight, she’d do anything.

_If there ever comes a time when you’re captured, and there’s no hope of reprieve, you must demand to see Lord Vader._

His name sent a chill down her spine.

 _When he comes, tell him one word._ He paused. _A name._

Leia sat up. Her father was gone, Alderaan was destroyed, and with the alliance scrambling to recover the Death Star plans, they could hardly send a rescue team for her. Not that one could reach her if they did, stuck as she was in the bowels of the deadly weapon itself. Surely, if there was ever a situation with no hope of a reprieve, this was it.

A sour sensation curled in the pit of her stomach then. She wasn’t stupid—nor was her father. That name meant something to Darth Vader, though she had no idea what. Perhaps blackmail, something her father had on the enigmatic, cloaked Sith. That seemed seemed unlikely though, given the secrecy that obscured even the most basic details of the man’s back ground (if indeed he was a man at all—rumors had been swirling for years that he was entirely mechanical, all humanity he once possessed erased by metal gears and cogs).

She could see her father’s play clearly in her mind: he intended to buy her life with this name. And there was the catch—she didn’t want to live.

Guilt crept up her back and tingled along her spine.

 _A senator does not give up. A rebel does not give up. A princess of Alderaan does not give up._ Her father’s voice again—though in life, he’d never be so crass as to directly reference her work with the alliance. Unconsciously, she smiled, and, for the first time, she felt her facade crack.

He was gone.

_You’ve got to be strong, Leia._

How could she forget the rumble of his baritone? The way you could hear the smile in his words?

She would not cry. Instead, she took a deep, steadying breath. She would not cry. She couldn’t deny her father his final wish—she had to grant him this last request.

 _Besides,_ that dark part of her mind whispered. _Obi-Wan Kenobi will get the plans to the rebel alliance, they’ll find the weak spot and blast this abominable space station all the way back to Mustafar._ A name couldn’t save her from the inferno of a hundred billion tonnes of metal combusting in a thousand degree heat—her fate was sealed.

She stood up abruptly, and brushed any wrinkles from her dress. She strode across the cell and banged until the doors opened, revealing a stormtrooper with a blaster aimed at her chest. She stuck out her chin. “I demand to speak with Lord Vader.”

***

Vader had to admit, he was intrigued by the request. The girl had proven much stronger than anyone—Tarkin, Vader, even the emperor himself—had anticipated. She certainly had her father’s strong will—though perhaps not his aptitude for diplomacy, Vader thought with some amusement, recalling a number of her more choice words to Grand Moff Tarkin. In that matter at least, they were agreed.

He had no doubt that the information she’d given up, the location of the rebel base, was a lie. Tarkin however, remained less convinced. It wounded his pride, Vader supposed, that he’d been unable to break a girl hardly out of adolescence (not that Vader had, but at least he would not delude himself with the laurels of victory). It was of no matter however, soon enough imperial scouts would confirm his suspicions.

He had been strategizing a new approach when the courier had rapped uncertainly on the door. Through profuse apologies and much bowing, eyes locked firmly on the floor, Vader had gathered that the little princess requested an audience with him, though he had his suspicions that “request” was not the term she had used.

Despite himself, he smiled, at least, as much as possible around the respirator. It really was too bad the girl seemed to have no aptitude for the Force. She’d make quite a formidable apprentice, if only her father hadn’t been such a naive man incapable of the vision necessary for a leader.

And yet, even with her unfortunate upbringing, here she was, no chips left with which to bargain (unless she intended to give up the base in exchange for her own life, but again, Vader preferred not to delude himself), demanding his presence. Intriguing, indeed.

Without a word to the courier who was still cowering in the doorway, Vader swept out of the room and headed down to the detention block. When he reached her cell, he flung the doors open with a wave of his gloved hand, dismissing the stormtroopers standing guard in the same motion.

The princess was ready for him, standing on one side of the cell, arms crossed and face defiant. There was a change though, almost imperceptible, something in the slant of her shoulders, or maybe the stiffness of her stance. A defeat that had not been there before.

Again he waved his hand, and the doors slid shut.

The girl flinched, ever so slightly.

 _Ah._ So she was still afraid of him, despite her best efforts to hide it. “Princess Leia,” he said. He inclined his head, leaving it up to her to decide whether the gesture was mocking or respectful.

“I have not called you here in order to further betray the rebellion.” Her voice revealed none of her fear. It was strong and steady—almost fierce in its delivery.

 _Further._ She was maintaining her facade, it seemed. “Then please Enlighten me, your highness. What do you wish to discuss?”

For a moment, she actually looked her nineteen years, biting her bottom lip in indecision. “ _I_ wish to discuss nothing!” She finally ground out, and indeed, it seemed as though something was dragging the words from her against her will. She paused a moment, jaw clenched and eyes cast towards the wall beside her. “My father did.”

Vader’s mood darkened. It all came back to that man—Bail Organa. Even in death Vader couldn’t be rid of him. “The final confession of a dead man? This should be interesting.”

Her glare was deadly. Even with such a petite frame, she had an uncanny ability to look down on him. Almost like—but no, he would not allow his mind to finish that thought.

“He wanted me to tell you something if—” For the first time, her voice broke, words skidding to a ragged stop. “A name,” she finally managed to swallow out, eyes cast down in shame.

Vader barely noticed the girl’s falter however, or the flush that rushed to her cheeks. What blood he had left ran cold. He had a dark suspicion of what exactly the late Viceroy wanted him to hear.

Vader had always suspected Organa knew the truth of his past, the man he had once been. It was impossible to know who Kenobi might have told before the confrontation on Mustafar, and his old master and the Alderaanian senator had been close allies, after all.

Organa had kept the secret well, never revealing his knowledge, but there were moments when Vader would catch the man staring at him from across the senate chambers, as if searching in the lines of his helmet for someone.

For years, Vader had known it was a possibility.

But, part of him had always hoped that—no. It was ridiculous to think, that some lingering…affection would silence the old Jedi. Kenobi had made his allegiance clear. Deep in his suit, the stumps of limbs ached as if in agreement. And yet, it still hurt, adding this betrayal to the list.

Vader’s fingers tightened into a fist. It seemed that from beyond the grave, Bail Organa had orchestrated one final taunt, to be delivered by his teenage daughter, no less. Vader would kill her before he would let her speak that name.

He reached out an arm, ready to choke the breath from the princess, but before he could, she spoke.

“Padmé.”

It was the shock that stayed his hand. It had been years since he’d heard his wife’s name in anything but the raspy voice of his master. Coming from Leia’s mouth however, he was staggered by its beauty. How could he have forgotten how lovely it sounded? _Padmé._

 _Of course,_ some still rational part of his brain reasoned, _if Organa knew the truth of my identity, he would also know to start with that name._ It didn’t matter though, the Sith Master, the right hand of the emperor, the Dark Lord himself stood breathless, frozen in place by two little syllables.

The girl didn’t seem to notice his distress, or how close she’d come to disaster. Her eyes were still cast down. “He wanted you to know my mother’s name. Padmé.” To punctuate the sentence, she lifted her head up, and met his eyes with her own.

It was like looking at a ghost. The realization hit him slowly, as her features mixed and rearranged into a familiar form. Long, dark hair, rounded face, short stature, youngest Imperial Senator ever elected. It was a miracle he hadn’t realized before.

 _A ploy,_ he thought desperately. It had to be. The wild attempts of dead man to preserve his daughter’s life. It wasn’t until her saw her eyes, the same warm chocolate as his wife’s, but burning with the wrath of Anakin Skywalker, that he truly understood. She was his daughter.


	2. Chapter 2

_Padmé_.

It was the first time she had ever heard her mother's name—playing Dejarik with her father.

Such an innocuous name, one popular across the galaxy. Leia had known two Padmés growing up—one the mousy granddaughter of her mother's favorite handmaid, the second a cropped-haired, wrench-wielding mechanic who maintained the hyperdrives in the royal family's starships.

_They're both dead now,_  Leia realized. Along with everyone else unlucky enough to be on-world when Alderaan met its end.

Like her family. Her aunts Tia, Rouge, and Celly. Winter, who was practically her sister. Her mother. Her father. All gone.

Leia had always known she was adopted (as did most of Alderaan, though the matter was never publicized), but she had never thought much about her birth mother. The Organas were enough.  _Not anymore_. Now, she was alone.

Stranded in the winding corridors of the Death Star, Leia had felt more connected with her mother—her birth mother—than she ever had before. For the first time in her life, she wondered who the woman was. It was said that Bail Organa barely escaped Coruscant with his life, the day of the Jedi Purges, and when he returned to the Mountain Palace on Alderaan, he had done so with a newborn baby girl in his arms. So many had died in the final hours of the war, no one had questioned the baby's origin. It was assumed she, like so many others, was merely an orphan of the conflict, her mother a nameless casualty of the Clone Wars.

Well, she wasn't nameless anymore.

In front of Leia, Vader was stock-still. The constant rhythm of his breaths which had reverberated loudly in the enclosed cell, shuddered to a halt.

When Leia had said her mother's name, she had half expected Vader to shrug. To ask why in the galaxy would he care about the name of a long-dead, entirely unimportant woman.

He hadn't.

"Padmé?" Despite his voice modulator, the word was soft. The eyes of Vader's helmet were unnerving—hollow and unseeing, almost like a dead thing, but Leia couldn't shake the impression they were digging into her soul.

The princess took an uncertain step back. "Yes…"

A shudder ran through the Sith, and he stumbled forward before drawing himself up to his full height.

The sole time she had asked about her birth mother as a girl (seized with the passion, after watching a holovid with Winter, that maybe she was a queen or witch from a faraway planet) her father had smiled and said she was a brave woman who had died for what she believed in—died to protect Leia.

But surely there was more than that, if the woman's name had such an effect on a Sith Lord.

_There is one obvious solution_ , a voice in her head whispered. The idea, the possibility, hadn't fully formed until a moment ago, but it had lingered in the back of her mind all those years before, in front of a Dejarik board. Maybe that was why she hadn't asked her father any questions, merely sworn to do as he asked.  _No. It couldn't be._

Vader seemed to have recovered from his stupor and with a jerky movement, whirled around and mashed some buttons on the keypad next to the door. A moment later, the doors  _swooshed_  open, revealing a medical droid.

"You requested a medical unit—" before the droid could finish, Vader grabbed it and flipped open a panel on the squashed dome of its head. Leia watched with some fascination (and a little horror) as he fiddled with the wires inside. After a couple minutes, Vader pulled out a small, whirring mechanism. As he held it loosely in the fingers of one gloved hand while he shut the panel with the other, Leia recognized the little collection of wires and circuits as a memory core.

Vader stood up and pocketed the mechanism. He pressed a few buttons on the droid's control panel before turning back to face the princess. "Hold out your hand."

It took Leia a second to realize that he was speaking to her. She had half-forgotten that she had a role to play in this theater at all, so engrossed had she been in the Sith's wild pantomimes.

"I won't hurt you." The words were edged with uncertainty, like they were from a foreign language Vader had never quite mastered.

_I won't hurt you._  What a load of bantha dung. The tracks on Leia's arms where she had been injected with the hallucinogenic agents by his interrogation droid burned. She kept her arms firmly down by her sides.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled it towards him, so her palm faced the ceiling. His grip was firm but surprisingly gentle.

Beside him, a short needle unfolded from the medical droid.

_No!_  Not again. Leia jerked her hand away, trying to free it from Vader's grasp, but he held it tight, fingers loose enough not to bruise the skin, but strong enough to keep it in place.

The needle touched the tip of her pointer finger. There was a sharp prick, and drop of blood beaded up. Before Leia could react, another arm appeared from the droid, vacuuming the drop into a vial. Both arms refolded neatly into the droid's body.

"And which specimen should I run the sample against, sir?" The droid asked with the clipped, mechanical rhythm that characterized the voice of most imperial droids.

Without saying a word, Vader pulled his right glove down, until the fabric folded over itself at the wrist, and rolled up his sleeve. As the sleeve went up, Leia saw the wires and mechanics of a cybernetic arm. At the elbow, the metal ended abruptly and his arm continued instead in a pale, lumpy flesh. "This," Vader finally said, proffering his arm to the droid, who dutifully took a sample from the upper bicep.

The droid started to whir as the test began. It took barely a minute—not nearly long enough for Leia to gather her wits about her. Her mind was racing, trying to catch up. No, not catch up exactly, because she already knew the answer. There was really only one solution, one explanation—elegantly simple and yet utterly impossible. After the telltale click and silence signifying the completed analysis, all she had time to do was whisper a desperate, emphatic " _No!_ " before the results were spoken.

"Paternal match."

* * *

He had been right. All those years ago when Padmé had been sure they were having a boy and he had insisted it was a girl. He had been right.

For the first time in years, Vader remembered what it was like to be Anakin Skywalker—filled at once with elation, the unbelievable excitement to meet his child,  _their_  child, but also the numbing fear of what that would mean. An end and a beginning all wrapped up in one.

"No."

It was the second time the girl had said it. He looked into her eyes, alight with a searing intensity and saw not a lack of understanding, but a  _refusal_  to understand. Organa hadn't told her—that much at least was evident from her glare. Vader was startled then to remember that she was an actual person, not a dream, not a fantasy of what might have been. She was an actual person who hated him, an actual person who had betrayed the empire and was scheduled for execution.

A burning anger at Bail Organa rose in him, a much more familiar emotion. Not anger for stealing his child—the last piece of his wife (for that was a crime he could not yet comprehend much less feel rage over)—but rather, for leading his daughter into a situation fraught with so much danger. Didn't he know what the empire did to traitors?  _I could've killed her!_

_"No."_  This time the girl said it louder, eyes fixed on him, as if daring him to contradict her.

"You don't believe the droid?"

Leia barely spared it a glance. "I don't  _care_  what the droid says—you're not my…my…" It seemed she couldn't quite choke out the word, and for a moment, Vader saw a crack in her carefully engineered defenses. She was using anger as a tactic, a mask, a way to drown out everything else. If it slipped, even for a second, it would give the truth enough time to wriggle in.

"I am your father, Leia." Such an inadequate phrase, but Vader was at a loss of what else to say.

The princess glared at him. "Sorry," she said, her tone brimming with irony. "The position's already filled. Bail Organa is my father."

"Bail Organa  _stole_  you from _me_!" He took a step closer, and she stumbled back, so she was pressed against the wall. Somewhere in his mind, he knew she was afraid, but Vader couldn't stop himself. "What did he tell you?" he demanded, taking another step forward. "That you were abandoned?" Another step. "That your father didn't want you?"

She shrank back further, holding her head in her hands as if she could block out his words.

"Or maybe he claimed your father was dead." He was practically on top of her now. "That you were an orphan picked up from the slums of Coruscant!"

"Nothing!"

Vader's march halted in surprise.

"He told me nothing!" Leia had turned to face him, and he was half-surprised to see tears running down her cheeks. During the hours of torture she hadn't cried once. Even after the destruction of Alderaan, not one tear had escaped her eyes. "And now I know why!"

He was shamed. It was a feeling he was accustomed to, one his master had a particular fondness for, but this interiority, this genuine desire to do better not to avoid pain or to gain power, but to protect someone was entirely new. His next words were soft. "Had I known you lived, I would have ripped the galaxy apart to find you."

Leia's eyes were so sad, for a moment he thought he was looking at Padmé backing away from him on Mustafar. "Don't you see?" Her words were quiet, but there was an undeniable force to them. "That's the problem." With that, she wiped her cheeks on the sleeve of her dress and turned away, staring resolutely at the wall behind him.

"You look so much like your mother," he reached out a hand and lightly brushed a hair that had strayed from her elaborate buns back behind her ear.

He felt her whole being tense, and suddenly, a force jerked his hand away. The girl hadn't moved—her fists were still clenched at her sides.

_She's Force sensitive!_  Of course she was, she was his daughter after all, but why hadn't he realized earlier? He reached out with his mind to feel her presence. Her mind was closed off from him—not unusual, even those untalented in the Force could learn to shield their inner thoughts from Force wielders—but more than that, he couldn't sense anything from her, not the slightest blip indicating that she was Force sensitive. Almost like someone had deliberately dampened her Force presence.  _Kenobi._ It had to be—Vader had always known his old master had survived the purges, but this was the first evidence of the man since he vanished following their duel.

Leia was oblivious to his realization, her head still turned towards the far wall, jaw stiff, deliberately not looking at him. Was she even aware of her own talent?

"Join me." The words slipped out before Vader could stop them.

She didn't even look his look his way. "Never."

He had expected nothing less, but that didn't stop the swell of disappointment. A different kind of disappointment, he realized with some distress, one that could not be obscured with anger.

He turned from her then, and walked to the front of the cell. He typed a passcode into the control panel and the doors opened.

"Wait."

Vader turned.

Leia's eyes were still locked on the opposite wall. She turned towards him slowly. Her cheeks were dry now, but the skin around her eyes was puffy and raw. "Who was she?" For the first time since he'd met her, the princess's voice was timid.

_Padmé._ What could he possibly say? A senator. A queen. A defender of democracy. A force of nature. None of that even scratched the surface. The cell was silent except for the heavy rise and fall of his breaths. Finally, he answered the only way he knew how. "My wife."

He turned away before he could see the expression on her face and exited the cell, the medical droid close behind.

* * *

As the door shut behind Vader, Leia let out a huge breath of relief. She could feel the tension leave her body and she sagged against the wall. It felt as though her knees were about to give out and she just managed to maneuver herself to the bench before she collapsed.

She was mad. Mind boggling mad. She had never been this mad. She was angry at the empire, at Tarkin, at herself. Most of all, she was angry at her father. Not Vader—her real father.

Bail Organa.

He had raised her, taught her, loved her, and then he had died. And he had left this  _monster_  to take his place. Leia wasn't sure if she could ever forgive him for that. It would've been better if he had let the secret die with him.

_But then I'd never know my mother's name._

She wasn't even sure it was a good thing—after all the woman had apparently been married to Darth Vader. Who knew how complicit she was in his crimes.

_She was a good woman, she died to protect you, Lelila._ The echo of her father's words from nearly a decade before sounded in her ears.

Surely he wouldn't lie about that? It would be too cruel.  _More cruel than saying that your mother was an accomplice in crimes across the galaxy?_

There was a memory she had—not a memory exactly, a collection of images and feelings—that she had never told anyone about. She wasn't even sure if they were real or imagined, but regardless, she  _remembered_ her mother. She had been beautiful and kind.  _Padmé._  Leia wanted it to be true— _needed_  it to be true—but deep down, she didn't know what to believe.

She wasn't sure how long she lay there, but it couldn't have been more than ten minutes before the doors to the cell opened again. She looked up, expecting to see Vader standing in the doorway, but it was only a guard.

She propped herself up on an elbow. "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"


End file.
